Link Exchange

Behind the scenes of the fight for the protection of animals and workers and the preservation of the environment - my experiences as a Tyson slaughterhouse hanger/killer turned activist. Exposing the evils of factory farming, by Virgil Butler. If you have arrived here looking for the Tyson stories, view the early archives. Some of them are now featured on the sidebar for easy searching.

Wednesday, July 21, 2004

Chicken Cruelty, USA

Well, it's been really interesting over the past day or so now. The network news channels all picked up the KFC cruelty story, and I even saw it on Good Morning America this morning. A lot more people have been coming here after that new video showing the atrocious cruelty at Pilgrim's Pride that PETA got came out. When I first told about all of these kinds of things happening, a lot of people just plain didn't want to believe it. They especially didn't want to believe that supervisors knew about it and did nothing. Some went so far as to call me a liar. Tyson sure did.

Well, now everyone can plainly see that not only was I the one telling the truth, but also that Tyson was the one telling everyone lies, that this sort of "outrageous" abuse does in fact happen, and that supervisors do in fact know about it. Don't let them convince you that this is an isolated incident. Keep in mind that this stuff caught on the video happened at one of the "Supplier of the Year" plants. If this is the best, well you can imagine how bad it is at the worst...

This happens industry-wide and is not at all uncommon. One of the main reasons that they can get away with it is because chickens are not covered under the Humane Slaughter Act, as they should be. Therefore, there is not much done about this kind of behavior. Usually nothing is done at all. The only reason that people might get fired over this is because they got caught in such a public way. That's also the only reason for an investigation.

There certainly wasn't much of an investigation where my case was concerned, if you have been reading enough of this blog to remember that back when it happened. In fact, what happened was much closer to a cover-up than any investigation. But, what can you expect when the town is beholden to Tyson and many of the law enforcement officers have chicken houses?

Anyway, while you are here, I want to call another site to your attention. Remember recently when I posted the new pictures of me with the hen and told you they were for a new site? Well, that site is up and running now. One of my contacts that works for the HSUS was working with Farm Sanctuary to put together a new site featuring the stories of workers and showing alternatives to factory farming.

It's called Ask Farmer Brown, and my story is here. They also have the stories of Dave Louthan and Rick Joshko, another chicken worker like me that has gone vegetarian and will never kill another chicken. Just in case you were still harboring a few doubts about how common this is, you know. Can't have that happen. They can also tell you in their own words how much of a hellhole these plants are. It's a great new site. They did a good job on it. Check it out.

This happens everywhere. And if you still are eating meat, this is what you are supporting.